SMSL M500 MKIII DAC & Amp Review

[beagleman]

Great measurements for sure, but it costs as much as several entire AVRs that do far more.

 

[mctron]

Great measurements for sure, but it costs as much as several entire AVRs that do far more.

Objection, relevance

 

[BostonJack]

At last... S.M.S.L understood that the volume has to be displayed bigger than the sample rate.
View attachment 236718

Performance is out of this word. Thanks for the review, @amirm ! Is your dashboard at 4.18Vrms done at max volume? Previous version had higher output voltage (at least the mk1).

Edit: pics of inputs and DAC boards:View attachment 236721View attachment 236722

Ooooh! Sexy insides! Love the clean, black silkscreen. Very serious looking.

 

[okok]

hey! es9038 runs very very hot, why there's no thermal pad on it? they are using thermal stuff in some previous products and amir nailed it (unstable without proper disspation)

 

[Nango]

At last... S.M.S.L understood that the volume has to be displayed bigger than the sample rate.
View attachment 236718

Performance is out of this word. Thanks for the review, @amirm ! Is your dashboard at 4.18Vrms done at max volume? Previous version had higher output voltage (at least the mk1).

Edit: pics of inputs and DAC boards:View attachment 236721View attachment 236722

I count up to 5 different fonts for 5 different labels and indicators on this front. Even both "1" on the display are different source. Seems like every single indicator is contributed by a different engineer or company. And Serifs on displays still look just awful.

 

[raif71]

I count up to 5 different fonts for 5 different labels and indicators on this front. Even both "1" on the display are different source. Seems like every single indicator is contributed by a different engineer or company. And Serifs on displays still look just awful.

 

[jacobacci]

I sympathize with the team at SMLS. I would probably make a huge mess of designing a screen with Chinese characters. Someone on this forum must know the folks at SMLS. With a bit of help, it should be a piece of cake to fix the awful looking "PCM" label and sort out the fonts in general

 

[Nango]

Do you really think a Mfr selling DAC at these prices into a different continent with different characters and idiom is not paying for a consultant?? That wonders me.

 

[sam_adams]

While the formfactor remains the same as previous generations, the display is upgraded to have high contrast and attractive color. Great that volume level if emphasized.

SMSL took our suggestions and ran with them. Excellent!:

SMSL M500 MKII Review (DAC & HP Amp)

Perhaps it happens, because our alphabet is not native to them. 也许它会发生，因为我们的字母表不是他们所固有的。 The safest bet might be IMHO, to employ a designer from the "Latin alphabet zone". Explain the UI of Japanese products, genius. Nothing to do with ethnicity. Some companies don't put the attention

www.audiosciencereview.com

SMSL M500 MKII Review (DAC & HP Amp)

Not enhanced or optimized . . . Black on white: White on black: Nice! Some thoughts. The number of digits for the volume is correct? Two decimals? RME has one decimal. Can't it go beyond 99? It's better not to change the position of digits to avoid confusions, so float right for...

www.audiosciencereview.com

SMSL M500 MKII Review (DAC & HP Amp)

Not enhanced or optimized . . . Black on white: White on black: Nice! Some thoughts. The number of digits for the volume is correct? Two decimals? RME has one decimal. Can't it go beyond 99? It's better not to change the position of digits to avoid confusions, so float right for...

www.audiosciencereview.com

For our contribution to the advancement of this stellar performer, @xaviescacs and I await our complimentary SMSL M500 mkIII DACs.

 

[oscar_dziki]

Okay, am I the only one who doesn't care if sinad is 123 or 115, and would love to get parametric eq in the price instead? We are already in inaudible regions, we should focus on things that existence we can notice. That's my thoughts.

 

[Timmeon]

I don't think the use of color adds anything of value with so much screen real estate on a desktop device. Makes it look cheap. Simple information, simple display. Easy fix:

 

[Nango]

It doesn't look chinese any more with just one font the display. Looks strange to me.

 

[xaviescacs]

For our contribution to the advancement of this stellar performer, @xaviescacs and I await our complimentary SMSL M500 mkIII DACs.

Yeah baby This is how it works, we do something for them, they do something for us, right?

I don't think the use of color adds anything of value with so much screen real estate on a desktop device. Makes it look cheap. Simple information, simple display. Easy fix:
View attachment 236774

Add one more for @Timmeon! Completely agree with him. I wrote this post in another thread some weeks ago.

 

[Tks]

Toslink better than USB? Lets freakin go, great to see finally! I knew that TOSLINK could be better in some implementations simply in virtue of the noise rejection inherent to not having conductive material as transport.

And here I thought we were slowly losing decent TOSLINK jacks from Toshiba or whoever produces the good ones anymore..

 

[okok]

Thanks amir, more info about M500 MKIII, can be check here.
Thanks

Mandy, can you release new firmware to fix this USB input problem? it's unusual, just make some update to solve it

 

[okok]

@SMSL-Mandy

this is the mk2 result, it doesn't suffer from the USB worse than spdif problem, something must be wrong

 

[DeepSpace57]

Mandy, can you release new firmware to fix this USB input problem? it's unusual, just make some update to solve it

LOL !

 

[xnor]

Amir load in balanced mode is 200k ohm. I have schematic. It is basic one. OPA1612 in I/V configuration, with R=350 ohm. Over R there is an C=... I do not remember his value..mmm In the output of the opamp is a serie R=100 or 120 ohm and after that C= 10nF. After that again R=100 or 120 ohm in serie. The same thing for minus XLR rail. All that is repeated of 8 times in parallel. There isn't any buffer.

Nope, that still makes no sense.
First, the load is gonna be the impedance of the line-in. That's at least 10k Ohm. And an OPA1612 has 0 issues driving such a load.
That's why your "200k" statement is completely irrelevant.

Secondly, if it really is a 120 ohm/10 nF lowpass then at 2.1V it would reach 10 mA at ~100 kHz ... if you had a full-scale signal at 100 kHz. Which is never gonna happen with anything resembling music, and OPA161x can drive harder loads anyway. So this objection is invalid.

So no, no extra buffer is needed and it wouldn't improve performance either. It would most likely make it worse.

 

[Madlop26]

Impressive device, thanks Amir, the day SMSL or topping release one of this high performance products with parametric EQ.........oh that day.....how long you guys think is gonna take?

 

[formdissolve]

Does this use digital volume for headphone output?